Assembly Square Infill and Small Developments | Somerville

[fattony]

There's already a Super Stop and Shop more or less there. It just needs a better pedestrian connection (current iteration sucks).

How can you improve that connection? Additional lighting? A stoplight on the frontage roads would be great, but hard to imagine.

I think a TJ's or WF right in the heart of AS would be perfect and would get a heck of a more of AS pedestrian business than that S&S.

 

[davem]

^ I guess I'm just used to living where I am. I've got a Stop and Shop and Shaws a third of a mile apart from each other. I think that's closer than the S&S and Circuit City near Assembly.

At the same time - the Shaws by me was subsidized by Harvard.

 

[fattony]

Grocery stores like to space themselves farther apart than that (too close to Stop and Shop) so as to mark a territory where they are "the" grocery store.

Grocery stores (not counting small mom & pop markets) are spaced every 0.5-1.0 mile throughout Cambridge and Somerville, often with nearest neighbors being the same brand...

The density of grocery stores is part of what contributes to livability and especially walkability.

 

[Arlington]

Grocery stores (not counting small mom & pop markets) are spaced every 0.5-1.0 mile throughout Cambridge and Somerville, often with nearest neighbors being the same brand...

The density of grocery stores is part of what contributes to livability and especially walkability.

Agreed, but the Circuit City site is insanely close...between 3/10 and 4/10 of a mile away from the Stop and Shop (too close, and within the 5/10 walk radius of the SS&S described below)

Taking the closest spacing of your range, the Stop and Shop has already "staked out" its 0.5mi radius around its existing store.

If the Circuit City were a great spot, we'd have seen a store there by now, and given that it isn't, I don't see that that Assembly Row is going to tip the balance in its favor, especially given that there's a complete vacuum just 3/4 of a mile away at Meadow Glen.

Whether Whole Foods, Market Basket, or Trader Joe's, I'd see them all preferring to have a little more breathing room between them and the Stop and Shop.

Viewed from Assembly Row, yes, Circuit City is just 0.3 miles away--but Stop and Shop is just 0.4 miles away....close enough that it would be smarter for the developer to "subsidize" an easier walk to the existing store than to have to offer inducements to attract a second grocer to the Circuit City site.

 

[fattony]

^ Arlington, I agree with you that CC is the wrong location. I think a grocery should be right in the heart of AS and should be a flagship of the next phase of building.

 

[Arlington]

How can you improve that connection? Additional lighting? A stoplight on the frontage roads would be great, but hard to imagine.

There's actually walkway under all the I-93 ramps--it starts at the intersection of Cummings & Kensington, crosses Bailey Rd at the new Self Storage building and then comes out right by the Stop and Shop.

Check out the truly dreadful underpass setup:
http://goo.gl/maps/uw60C

It provides a direct link from the Self Storage building to the Stop and Shop, but man, is it sketchy.

 

[Matthew]

^ I guess I'm just used to living where I am. I've got a Stop and Shop and Shaws a third of a mile apart from each other. I think that's closer than the S&S and Circuit City near Assembly.

I was going to point this out.

And of course, there's also the Shaw's + Hong Kong Supermarket, about one block apart.

 

[choo]

Wasn't Walmart looking at the Circuit City for one of its urban markets but that got shot down. I still think that would work as Assembly gets built up.

I hope the old AMC and current lincoln tech buildings/lots get wrecked and incorporated.

 

[Arlington]

And of course, there's also the Shaw's + Hong Kong Supermarket, about one block apart.

Hong Kong Supermarket has *demographic* distance from Shaws, making physical distance less important.

Trader Joes has *SKU* distance (unique items) from competitors and could, I'll admit, make do with the "small" Circuit City footprint--but at that, they'd seem more natural for slipping directly into a retail slot (but with parking) like at the current/old Assembly Square Mall (say, facing Rt 28 and catching folks on their homebound commute).

(They obsess over things like "morning commute" vs "evening commute" side of the street. The former being good for dry cleaners and coffee shops, the latter being good for take-home purchases and dining)

Either way, a site selection staffer/consultant for a "worthy" store (that all the chains would have/use) has to answer the question: "To what customers (and how many of them) will this site give my new store near-unrivaled access?" It isn't that Circuit City can't give a decent answer, its that its going to struggle to get to the top of anyone's list (until they see "how it is going" at Assembly Row).

 

[SeamusMcFly]

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.0719892,-71.0467135,461m/data=!3m1!1e3

Here's S&S and Shaw's next door to each other here in my City.
I hate all the strip malls and parking here, but there precedent for competition between grocers in the same neighborhood.... doesn't get much closer than htis.

 

[Matthew]

If there's actual population density and sufficient people around on a general basis then two supermarkets could co-exist within short distance of each other.

 

[Arlington]

If there's actual population density and sufficient people around on a general basis then two supermarkets could co-exist within short distance of each other.

But they need a good reason before they would voluntarily chose to do so in a free market. The case has to be made that it is good for the grocer--or rather "the best new site" for the grocer-- not just that Assembly Row "needs" it somehow. That's a hard case to make at Circuit City.

If anybody is going to lean on somebody to extract "better access to groceries" for Assembly, the most cost-effective path is to upgrade the access to the current, functioning, not-risky Stop and Shop.

If it is a free choice to serve the area, I can't see anyone besides Trader Joe's taking the risk @ Circuit City, and am sure TJ's would rather be "in" Assembly Square or at the now-empty Meadow Glen S&S location.

 

[nm88]

^Whatever they are I hope they stay.

Whoops, I meant the RR struts, or whatever they are.

 

[Matthew]

I guess I'm used to living in places with multiple grocery stores (serving different niches perhaps).

Wasn't there a plan for a new grocery store next to the station? What happened to that?

I remember that the city was upset about the supermarket proposal because it was only 1 floor -- they wanted higher density near the station and requested of FR that multiple floors be built. Not sure if that was worked out.

 

[davem]

IIRC, the Shaws by me was/is subsidized by Harvard, I think with drastically decreased rents. If Federated saw getting a supermarket in there as an amenity to attract further residents, a similar deal would likely happen. It could be in a new building; I suggested the Circuit City space simply because it exists, and could therefore come online a bit faster. Stuff like this will likely depend on how fast the apartments lease up.

 

[commuter guy]

Jacobs would say that a neighborhood built all at once from scratch is already-dead (except in much more poetic terms). There's no substitute for a mix of building ages.

I really want Assembly Row to work, but I can't help thinking that it's going to turn into Santana Row.

^Agree and I would add the fact that the whole development is under the common ownership which will really work against Assembly Square developing organically into a neighborhood. Although, it may turn out to be an economic success the ownership will never let the neighborhood age organically. It will follow the familiar pattern - in about 20 years the area will age and lose a bit of it's luster. The owner will reinvent the area with a wholesale makeover bringing with it another economic shot in the arm. This is the pattern with the Pru Center, Quincy Market, Shoppers World, Natick Mall etc. No mid market or interesting low rent commercial tenants are ever going to be a part of the mix - ever. Again, Assembly Square will probably be a success for what it is and a much better utilization of urban land than what would have been built say 15 years ago, but I don't have a lot of hope it will turn into a fine urban neighborhood in the sense of other Boston area neighborhoods.

 

[davem]

Does Federated typically manage their properties or sell them off once complete?


Also to the point below, much of the wooden outlyer neighborhoods are also Sears kit houses or triple deckers/2 families. My neighborhood alone is 90% the same four houses over and over again. Time does wonders to improve homogeneity. You could also argue the Back Bay was an ex industrial site, since the bay itself was mostly used with mill dams for power and by the railroads.

 

[kjdonovan]

"Organic" neighborhood? Let's be realistic. Most of the major developments around Boston--present and future--are on old industrial sites and rail yards: NorthPoint, Assembly, Allston, Boston Landing, Seaport, Chelsea, Everett.

Only two that I can think of, Kendall and Fenway, had people living alongside industry--and so have a history of livable neighborhoods. I'd reserve criticism for the "natural feel" for a place to those two areas. Otherwise, you're starting from scratch.

Boston has its historic, slow-build neighborhoods, but these aren't them. As an aside, neither the Back Bay nor the South End could be considered organic in their growth. Back Bay was largely designed by one firm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gridley_James_Fox_Bryant

Charles Bulfinch is to thank for the South End: http://www.south-end-boston.com/History

And before you say, "This ain't the Back Bay," let's consider the cost of building now versus the 1860s, pre-regulation, unionization, and litigation. Brownstones come cheap when built without a minimum wage law.

 

[choo]

^Exactly. Not to say that this is the ultimate goal of neighborhood development we want to spread across the metro, but let's not lament the loss of a non-existent Assembly Sq. neighborhood.

 

[commuter guy]

Maybe I should clarify, it's not so much that it's being built from scratch, it's the part about the large scale unilateral ownership of the entire "neighborhood." The REITs or corporate owners will not allow Assembly Square to "age organically." The developer/designers of neighborhoods such as the Back Bay and S. End never retained unilateral ownership of the hundreds if not thousand of commercial and residential structures constructed in those neighborhoods. This neighborhood's DNA is more akin to "Santana Road" than neighborhoods such as Allston or the Back Bay, irrespective of aesthetics.